Richard Osman is no stranger to being recognised. Years as a television presenter made him a household name in the UK. But today there’s a different, more peculiar way to measure his fame: walk into almost any bookshop and somewhere on the shelves, there is likely to be a book with Osman’s name on it. The Thursday Murder Club series, centred on four unlikely pensioner detectives, has sold over 10 million copies worldwide, spawned a second crime series, and now lives on Netflix with a star-studded cast. His second series, We Solve Murders, continues with We Chase Shadows, a second instalment.
And yet, for all the scale of Osman’s success, his fiction remains remarkably intimate. It unfolds in quiet moments, dappled hedgerows, and a whole lot of homemade cake.
As I join our Zoom call, I’m greeted by the man himself—briefly pulled away from the task of signing about eight million inserts for his newest novel. Before I even launch into my questions, I hold up the stack of his books sitting beside me—11, to be exact—and confess that I’ve read them more than 15 times.
“That’s too many,” he counters, laughing.
Ahead of the release of We Chase Shadows, we spoke about his writing process, the murders he creates and the people who solve them.
With The Thursday Murder Club, you cemented yourself as one of the faces of cosy crime. But the We Solve Murders series has everything a hallmark thriller has—assassins, chases, violence. Do you feel boxed in by that label of “cosy crime” now?
When I first started writing The Thursday Murder Club, I had never even heard of the term cosy crime. There was a lot of Scandi Noir—lots of blood and gore—that was the market. I never really think I’m writing cosy stories because I write about grief, dementia and assisted dying. I just try to write about the world. If Agatha Christie is cosy crime, I’m very, very happy to be called the same.
What do you do differently when you sit down to write We Solve Murders compared with The Thursday Murder Club?
I don’t do anything differently. What changes is the panorama they’re set against. The Thursday Murder Club is very much a closed community—the village, the restaurant, the shuttle bus. And then We Solve Murders is private jets, celebrities, martinis in hotel bars and all that stuff. So it’s a different setting, but I’m still writing the same sort of book. I’m still writing about people.
Amy and Steve from We Solve Murders are family, but not by blood. Temperamentally, they’re worlds apart. What drew you to this dynamic?
I feel like you can’t keep writing the same novel for the rest of your life. I was thinking about unusual character pairings, and the idea for a father-in-law and daughter-in-law duo came to me. They’re family, but not blood family, which I find really interesting. Amy is very much an adventurer, and Steve is someone who would rather sit on his sofa, petting Trouble the cat. But they get pulled into each other’s worlds because they’ve come to care for each other. And then Rosie is just an agent of chaos. She’s there for the drama and the glamour.
Even in this posh, dynamic new world, grief and loneliness remain central to your characters. Why do you think those themes belong here too?
Because that’s life, you know. It’s glamour and sadness. It’s laughs and grief. I like to write about human beings, and no human is without grief and loneliness—you need those things, otherwise it feels fake. You can’t cheat a laugh. I also think that it’s hard to live in this world. There are seven billion of us on this planet, and none of us really know how to navigate it. I want people in a hundred years’ time to be able to look back on these books and have some understanding of what the world was like in 2026. The best way to show that is through people.
One of the things I love the most about The Thursday Murder Club is the vision of growing old that it gives me. Is that something you personally think about: how do you choose to live the life you have left?
How can you not? That is a question I think we all think about. For me it comes down to love. If you can leave the world a little better than you found it, look after people who are weaker than you, and love the people around you, then that’s a pretty good life.
I’ve read these books more times than I can count and find something new every time. So I have to ask: do you write with rereaders like me in mind?
Not really. Although I’m a huge rereader myself. So when I write, I write as though I’m a reader discovering the book. I like to experience the story as I go. And once the characters feel real to you, they automatically say things that go on to mean something more in the future context.
What does the process actually look like when you sit down to write? Do you have it all mapped out right from the start?
I try to write about 1,500 words a day, which usually takes me about two hours. I like short chapters, so I essentially write a chapter a day, because it gives me a clear sense of what needs to happen, whose head I’m in, and where it goes from there. I don’t plot ahead of time. I’ve never felt the need to do it. Writing, to me, is a story unfolding and things happening to characters, because that’s how I like to read. Obviously, as I get further into the book, I’m a few steps ahead of the reader and more things come into focus for me. But I couldn’t write a 50-page document telling me everything that’s going to happen, because I myself want to discover the story and the characters as I go.
You have two different, well-loved literary universes now. Will they ever officially intersect?
I’d love that, but due to rights, I’m not legally allowed to. There are little nods, though, as readers have spotted in We Solve Murders—and there’s one in We Chase Shadows too. I’m sure you’ll spot it.
Despite all the murders they contain, your books are very life-affirming. Is that contradiction something you intentionally write towards?
It’s such an impossible question, isn’t it? Because crime fiction and murder mysteries can be anything. That’s why I love writing them: in the background of the crime and the detection, you can tell any story you want about any culture, society or characters. We’re human beings with complex brains; we can hold two thoughts in our head at the same time and find entertainment and fun in it. I feel crime readers and writers have a sort of contract between themselves, “It’s better to read about murder than to commit it.”